HSBC to pay €300m to settle tax investigation

HSBC has agreed to pay €300m to French authorities to settle a long-running investigation into tax evasion by French clients. The French financial prosecutor's office claimed HSBC's Swiss private banking unit helped clients evade tax. The investigation started in 2014 after a former IT employee leaked data involving thousands of French customers. Herve Falciani said he became a whistleblower to help governments track down people who used Swiss bank accounts to evade tax. The settlement between HSBC's Swiss Private Bank and the French prosecutor was the first such deal to be struck under new French rules introduced in 2016 to allow companies to settle without any finding of guilt, HSBC said.